The Last
 Kareena Maxwell
Yellow Jackets fly close to his face-one under his nose. I watch him swipe it hard with his bearish paw. The light from the sun dots my writing like underexposed tattoos on a faded stained glass from natures over pounding frame.

Now, it is done. We sit in the cracked leaves beyond the viral water of Staten Island. A breeze wipes my skin against the sun on September 1st that is scheduled to meet October – soon – but not too soon. “The breeze controls everything,” he says. Photo shop lending forms and perfect shades show the crickets what their world looks like. I am not lost, but wandering around the planet that loses itself by turning into different seasons.

A potato cloud wants to stay with us. I am dying inside. I can’t say it; can’t think it-will not resign my words to the last word that I can say that will live past the last 3-years. And now in the last moments before you get into the Kia and drive west- I cherish you.

A system of wind in measures blows into us. It comes and stays and blows broken twigs and leaves in between red and brown into our personal boundary. Against my back and with the sudden cry of crickets, we explain the distance of the wind. Under toned stems from June’s plants curve into the loss of sunlight. Ants crawl upward against the pull that encapsulates the drive to create hills of life-now-not changed but broadened into tomorrow. Bill must leave for the America he has longed for.

Let us dance over the roots of trees as the Shadow of Heaven song plays on top of our striped beach chairs in September. But don’t mourn. Others have and others will follow us on the path of relational consciousness. My legs are under the shade from the trees. We prepare for cover. We announce our absence to the tri-languaged dragonfly; Norman. He stops by briefly shadowing the sun at the peak of clarity. We keep our knees locked. We keep our hearts in duality and the windows on our new house in Concho, Arizona, in our dream, the walls and what about the plumbing and electrical sockets?